• Portrait of Leslie Roos
  • Distinguished professor

    Max Rady College of Medicine
    Community Health Sciences
    Manitoba Centre for Health Policy
    Room 408 - 727 McDermot Avenue
    University of Manitoba
    Winnipeg, Manitoba R3E 3P5

    Phone: 204-789-3773  
    Fax: 204-789-3910
    leslieljr.roos@umanitoba.ca

Research summary

Dr. Roos is currently studying the influences of social circumstances from birth to successful adulthood on successful development.

The Manitoba databases permit making strong causal influences from longitudinal, quasi experimental data. In particular, the role of events at different life stages can be explored in powerful ways. For example, poverty can be measured by receipt of EIA (Employment Income Assistance).

The influence of family poverty on academic achievement can be studied looking at EIA in the prenatal period and at four childhood ages: 1-5, 6-9, 10-14, and 15-18.

Measures of academic achievement are available at age 5 (the Educational Development Index), age 9 (the provincial Grade 3 assessment measure), age 15 (the Grade 9 Assessment Index) and age 18 (two Grade 12 assessment measures).

Poverty early in life may carry over and affect later achievement.

We are able to compare siblings whose family received EIA at one time period but not at another (thus controlling for many family characteristics typically unmeasured).

Such an approach is broadly applicable across a number of independent and dependent variables; maternal and child health measures may be of particular interest.

Research themes

  • big data
  • cohort studies
  • development through the life course
  • multigenerational research
  • record linkage
  • research platforms

Research interests

  • population research, concept dictionary and glossary
  • poverty and early childhood outcomes
  • information-rich research environments

Keywords

  • cohort
  • data bases
  • longitudinal
  • multi-disciplinary
  • population-based
  • sibling

Research affiliations

Founding co-director, Manitoba Centre for Health Policy

Research groups

Manitoba Centre for Health Policy

 

Biography

Dr. Leslie Roos is a distinguished professor in community health sciences at Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Manitoba and a founding co-director of the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy.

He has received a number of CIHR grants directed toward the use of large data bases in health services research and the study of human development over the life span.

Dr. Roos played a major role in MCHP’s two Canada Foundation for Innovation grants supporting the creation and expansion of Canada’s first laboratory built on population-based data on health, education, and social services.

He has worked and written on the organization of information to facilitate productivity in using such databases for a variety of research purposes. Of particular interest has been his innovative work on the expansion of record linkage to both broaden the scope of research and improve its quality.

According to Google Scholar, Dr. Roos has been cited approximately 16,100 times (as of July 2021).

Education

Doctor of Philosophy, Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, supervised by Ithiel De Sola Pool (1966)

Bachelor of Arts (Distinction) and Phi Beta Kappa, Psychology and Biology, Stanford University (1962)

Awards

MacNaught Taillon Leadership Award in Health Policy, Health Information, and Health Services Research (from the Justice Emmett Hall Memorial Foundation) (2014)

Elected to the Life Sciences Division, Academy of Science of the Royal Society of Canada, (2010)

Elected Fellow, Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, (2010)

Distinguished Professor, University of Manitoba (2006)

Highly Cited Investigator, Institute for Scientific Information (2003)

Graduate Students' Association Mentorship Award University of Manitoba, (2000)

Fellow, Association for Health Services Research (1997)

Associate, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (1988-1998)

University of Manitoba Annual Outreach Award (1986-1987)

National Health Scientist, Health and Welfare, Canada (1983-2000)

Rh Institute Award for Research Excellence, University of Manitoba (1978)

National Health Scholar, Health and Welfare, Canada (1977-1983)

Dr. Leslie Roos In the news

Contact us

Community Health Sciences
Max Rady College of Medicine
Room S113 - 750 Bannatyne Avenue
University of Manitoba (Bannatyne campus)
Winnipeg, MB R3E 0W3 Canada

204-789-3655